West coast 2 weeks next May (train north, driver south)

After getting a lot of help here for a Southwest trip we just finished, we are planning a new trip next May (probably around the middle 2 weeks). This will be about 2 weeks.
The plan is to fly from London to San Francisco, getting to SFO early enough to drive to Santa Cruz that day.
Day 2 is Roaring Camp railway through the Redwoods, then up to San Jose to catch the Starlight to Seattle, so Day 3 is the train ride, getting to Seattle in the evening.
Day 4 is Seattle. I was thinking only one day there, because I want to spend 2 days in Portland - it may sound odd, but I want to have 2 food truck lunches. We can leave Portland after lunch.
We've got no firm ideas for the rest of the trip, although I think that 3 days in San Francisco sounds good.
We're senior citizens, fairly active.
I know that weather is going to be a factor that we can't predict, but I will want to get things locked down and reservations made well in advance. As for budget, sort of mixed luxury and more moderate, but nothing over the top, just nice.
I like good food, but more 'road food' than 'haute cuisine'. As an ex-pat I miss my American food, and we can get fine dining in the UK (although we might try some of the better San Francisco restaurants.
Anyway, I'm mainly looking for routes and stopover places right now.
Thanks.
Doug

Crater Lake is in southern Oregon, as well as the Rogue River Valley. In central Oregon is the Three Sisters region, and nearby are some lava fields. Years back, we took a tour over those fields, which were west of Bend. Interesting!!!!!!

West coast 2 weeks next May (train north, drive south)

Thanks.
I probably should hav been more specific. That sounds fascinating but we've decided not to do those areas (or Lassen). We do want to do the coastal Redwood road in California.
One of the things I don't know is the time to do some of the coastal routes, so any advice on those would be useful. I can obviously estimate I5 time. I do know that the Oregon coast can be foggy in May (or at least I've been told it can be) so we may have to make decisions at the time according to the weather.

The No CA redwoods are lovely. Were you interested or considering visits to Olympic National Park (mountains and temperate rain forest), Mt Rainier or Mt Saint Helens?

:We want a good view of Mt. Rainier (weather permitting) but I don't think we need to get close, and some roads might be closed. We'll skip the other two also. In a fortnight, there's only so much we can do, and 2 nights in Seattle, 2 in Portland, and 4 in San Francisco (plus 2 at the beginning of the trip) eat up a lot of the time we have available. We could go slightly over 14 but it would have to be special. Not that those are not special, but I think May is too early for them.
Thanks
Doug

Portland to San Francisco next May

The trip is really Amtrak from San Francisco to Seattle and drive back, but my real question is about Portland to San Francisco. Plan at the moment is:

Day '1' - leave Portland after lunch (to get maximum food truck meals there, spent night at Yachats
Day '2' - Yachats Gold Beach
Day '3' - Jetboat till about 4, so probably Gold Beach again although could drive an hour or 2 further south
Day '4' time enough to see the redwoords in northern California
and so on to San Francisco

It's a long trip from Gold Beach to San Francisco, so I'm still thinking of not spending the 2nd night at Gold Beach but driving south a bit. Is there anyplace a bit south of Crescent City near/in the redwoods area that would allow us to have just one break on the drive from Gold Beach to San Francisco and still get some time for the redwoods? The jetboat has added a day to our trip and I don't want it to cost us another day.
Thanks
Doug

Last edited by Mark Sedenquist; 06-21-2012 at 01:02 PM.
Reason: Please keep all posts related to the same trip in one thread, it get's too confusing for us to keep track of multiple threads